Shofar FTP Archive File: camps/aktion.reinhard/yvs16.06

Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Yad Vashem Studies XVI: Operation Reinhard (6/11)
Summary: Belzec, from March 17 til June 1942
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Organization: The Nizkor Project - http://www.nizkor.org
Keywords: Yad Vashem,treblinka,sobibor,belzec
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X-FAQ: http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/reinhard/
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Archive/File: orgs/israeli/yad-vashem/yvs16.06
Last-modified: 1993/03/29
XRef: yad_vashem index
YAD VASHEM STUDIES
XVI
Edited by Aharon Weiss
YAD VASHEM
MARTYR'S AND HEROES' REMEMBRANCE AUTHORITY
JERUSALEM 1984
"Operation Reinhard":
Extermination Camps of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka
Yitzhak Arad
Belzec -- from March 17 till June 1942
Organized mass extermination began with the deportation of the Jews
of Lublin on March 17,1942. This date marks the actual onset of
Operation Reinhard.
When the train entered Belzec station, its 40-60 freight cars were
rearranged into several separate transports because the reception
capacity inside the camp was 20 cars at the most. Only after a set
of cars had been unloaded and sent back empty was another section of
the transport driven into the camp. The accompanying security guards
as well as the German and Polish railroad personnel were forbidden to
enter the camp. (See note 6 )
The train was brought into the camp by a specially selected and
reliable team of railroad workers. According to the concept of the
extermination process, the procedure was as follows:
The camp looked "peaceful." The victims were unable to discern either
graves, ditches or gas chambers. They were led to believe that they
had arrived at a transit camp. An SS-man strengthened this belief by
announcing that they were to undress and go to the baths in order to
wash and be disinfected. They were also told that afterwards they
would receive clean clothes and be sent on to a work camp.
Separation of the sexes, undressing, and even the cropping of the
women's hair could not but reinforce the impression that they were on
their way to the baths. First the men were led into the gas
chambers, before they were able to guess what was going on; then it
was the turn of the women and children. (StA Munich 1, AZ. 22 Js
68/61, pp. 2625 f.)
The gas chambers resembled baths. A group of young and strong Jews,
a few dozen, occasionally even a hundred, was usually selected during
the unloading of a transport. Most of them were taken to Camp II.
They were forced to drag the corpses from the gas chambers and to
carry them to the open ditches. Several prisoners were employed in
collecting the victims' clothes and belongings and carrying them to
the sorting point. Others had to remove from the train those who had
died during the transport and to take those unable to walk to the
ditches in Camp II. These Jews were organized into work teams with
their own Capos. They did this work for a few days or weeks. Each
day some of them were killed and replaced by new arrivals.
SS-man Karl Alfred Schluch, a former "Euthanasia" worker, who spent
ca. sixteen months in Belzec from the very beginning, described what
else happened to the transports inside the camp:
The unloading of the freight cars was carried out by a Jewish work
commando, headed by a Capo. Two to three members of the German
camp personnel supervised it. It was one of my duties to
supervise here. After the unloading, those Jews able to walk had
to make their way to the assembly site. During the unloading the
Jews were told that they had come for resettlement but that first
they had to be bathed and disinfected. The address was given by
Wirth, and also by his interpreter, a Jewish Capo. Immediately
after this, the Jews were led to the undressing huts. In one hut
the men had to undress and in the other the women and children.
After they had stripped, the Jews, the men having been separated
from the women and children, were led through the tube. I cannot
recall with certainty who supervised the undressing huts... Since
I was never on duty there I am unable to provide precise details
about the stripping process. I just seem to remember that in the
undressing hut some articles of clothing had to be left in one
place, others in a different one, and in a third place valuables
had to be handed over...
My location in the tube was in the immediate vicinity of the
undressing hut. Wirth had stationed me there because he thought
me capable of having a calming effect on the Jews. After the Jews
left the undressing hut I had to direct them to the gas chamber.
I believe that I eased the way there for the Jews because they
must have been convinced by my words or gestures that they really
were going to be bathed. After the Jews had entered the gas
chambers the doors were securely locked by Hackenholt himself or
by the Ukrainians assigned to him. Thereupon Hackenholt started
the engine with which the gassing was carried out. After 5 - 7
minutes -- and I merely estimate this interval of time -- someone
looked through a peephole into the gas chamber to ascertain
whether death had overtaken them all. Only then were the outside
gates opened and the gas chambers aired. Who did the checking,
that is to say, who looked through the peephole? I can no longer
say with any certainty... In my view, probably everyone had
occasion to look through the peephole. After the gas chambers had
been aired, a Jewish work commando headed by a Capo, arrived and
removed the coryses. Occasionally, I also had to supervise in
this place. I can therefore give an exact description of what
happened, because I myself wimessed and experienced it all. The
Jews had been very tightly squeezed into the gas chambers. For
this reason the corpses did not lie on the floor but were caught
this way and that, one bent forward, another one backward, one lay
on his side another kneeled, all depending on the space. At least
some of the corpses were soiled with feces and urine, others
partly with saliva. I could see that the lips and tips of the
noses of some of the corpses had taken on a bluish tint. Some had
their eyes closed, with others the eyes were turned up. The
corpses were pulled out of the chambers and immediately examined
by a dentist. The dentist removed rings and extracted gold teeth
when there were any. He threw the objects of value obtained in
this manner into a cardboard box which stood there. After this
procedure the corpses were thrown into the large graves there.
(See note 6 )
It is difficult to establish exactly how many of the gas chambers
were in operation during the first three months of the mass
extermination in Belzec. At times not all three gas chambers
functioned because of technical problems or actual defects.
Problems also arose with the burial of the victims. When a ditch was
filled with corpses, it was covered with a thin layer of soil. As a
result of the heat, the decomposition process, and sometimes also
because water seeped into the ditches, the bodies swelled up and the
thin layer of soil burst open.
Those no longer able to walk were led directly to the ditch where
they were shot. Robert Juhrs, an SS-man who started his service in
Belzec in the summer of 1942, described how such shootings were
conducted:
At the beginning of the autumn of 1942, upon the arrival of a
largish transport, I was assigned to the unloading site.
On this transport the freight cars had been seriously overcrowded,
and many Jews were unable to walk. It is Possible that in the
confusion a number of Jews had been pushed onto the floor and
trampled on. In any case, there were Jews who could not possibly
have walked via the undressing huts. As usual, Hering also turned
up here for the unloading. He ordered me to shoot these Jews...
The Jews in question were taken to the gate by the Jewish work
commando and from there conveyed to the ditch by other working
Jews. As I recall, there were seven Jews, both men and women, who
were laid inside the ditch.
At this point I should like to stress that the victims concerned
were those persons who had suffered most severely from the
transport. I would say that they were more dead than alive. It
is hard to describe the condition of these people after the long
journey in the indescribably overcrowded freight cars. I looked
upon killing these people in that manner as a kindness and a
release. (See note 6 )
The first large Jewish community taken to Belzec for extermination
came from Lublin. Within four weeks, from March 17 to April 14,
close to 30,000 of the 37,000 inhabitants of the ghetto were deported
to Belzec. Within the same period of time an additional 18,000 -
20,000 Jews from the Lublin Bezirk were sent to Belzec.
The first Jewish transport from the Lvov Bezirk came from Zolkiew, a
town 50 km. southwest of Belzec. This transport consisted of
approximately 700 Jews and reached Belzec on March 25 or 26,1942.
Subsequently, within the two weeks up to April 6, 1942, some 30,000
other Jews from the Lvov Bezirk arrived in Belzec.
After 80,000 Jews had been murdered in a major operation, which
lasted about four weeks, the transports were discontinued. Toward
the end of April or the beginning of May 1942, Wirth and his SS-men
left the camp.
At the beginning of May 1942 SS-Obe~fu"hrer Brack from Berlin visited
Globocnik in Lublin. Globocnik requested the return of Wirth and his
staff, and also asked for additional personnel from the "Euthanasia"
program.
In mid-May 1942 Wirth returned to Belzec. Until the end of June more
transports arrived from the Lublin and Krakow districts with about
22,000 Jews.
With the onset of the deportations from the Bezirks of Cracow, Lvov,
and Lublin, Wirth realized that the wooden gas chambers could not
cope with the arrival of the increasing number of victirns.
Deportations to Belzec therefore ceased in mid-June 1942, while new
gas chambers were being built there. This concluded the first period
of the operation in Belzec.

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